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Elaine Wilson left school at 16 with 2 GCSEs, one in English one in Maths. She got pregnant two months later and spent the next nine years raising a family. She spent all her time looking after her kids, managing to raise them on a meagre budget of benefits. Maintaining relationships with the housing association, social workers who always seemed to be on her back, doctors, schools, all the stuff of life. She was too busy with the daily grind to work. She had no skills. Or so they told her.

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Being in at the start of the new Career Consultancy profession is tremendously exciting. Over the past twenty years the concept and practice of giving career advice to adults who take an interest in their future has developed beyond all expectations. More and more people are using career consultants and even more are aware of the benefits. But with growth comes responsibility, and a fair share of difficulties.

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The recession has led to a significant change in the concerns that Career Energy clients express about their careers. Until six months ago the main issue for most clients was dissatisfaction with their career. They were looking for something that was better suited to their skill sets and their interests. Now the main issue is fear of redundancy. The question of job satisfaction is no longer so important. (more…)

Although the announcement of 3,500 job cuts at Corus heralds disaster for the workers and their families, one positive initiative has emerged. If taken up and developed by other companies who are laying off staff, and by the government, it could radically reshape the impact that redundancies have on individuals and communities.

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It may sound odd but even though companies are laying off staff left, right and centre, the more forward thinking ones already have an eye on the end of the recession and are starting to think about how and when they will begin recruiting again. The difference however between the recruitment campaigns that most companies conduct in the course of normal trading, and those being planned for the future, is that the post-recession csampaigns can be carried out more slowly, and far more effectively.

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As unemployment rises and being out of work sadly becomes a long term condition, we are likely to see job clubs start to flourish. They are an inexpensive and supportive way of easing the lonely process of job search.

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We received a call yesterday from a company organising a big event to be held later in the year. The event was to focus on the Skills Agenda. There were to be exhibitors from the Learning and Skills Council, the Ministry of Skills, the Skills Consortium, Skills for Shmills and Shmills for Skills. How did we get all it so wrong?

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Great things are expected of the new American president. Expectations are riding higher on him than on any other new president, even Kennedy. There are many reasons for this. But for Barack Obama the big question is how to live up to those expectations. It is a problem, albeit on a different scale, with which many of us will be familiar from our own careers.

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Today’s prediction from the pundits is 3.4 million unemployed at the peak of the recession. This will remind those who remember of the dark days of the Callaghan government in the 1970s when unemployment topped 3 million and the Tories came to power under a slogan of ‘Labour Isn’t Working’. But these days are not at all similar to those. (more…)

He had left school at 16 and spent three years in the Navy.  He had a creative mind, an analytic bent and was good with his hands: he had been a web designer, a writer and a mechanic. He was interested in marketing, business analysis, advertising and product development. When I met him he just left a job where he was efectively the CEO of a group of five property companies. He was 27 years old. He told me he could not get another decent job because he didn’t have a degree. 

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